Are You Feeling Festive Yet?

The holidays are officially upon us and I can’t help but feel the magic of the season. The bell ringers are in front of my local Wal-Mart and tonight will be spent caroling with the youth in my neighborhood. We’re delivering treats to a few surrounding families in need of extra cheer. I sincerely believe that many ailments from loneliness to sickness can be healed with a dose of love and attention.

This is why I’m so excited to bring you the “Creativity Heals” campaign created by our sister publication, Creating Keepsakes magazine.

Creating Keepsakes recognizes the inspiring and healing power that creativity brings into our lives and the lives of others. Since Creating Keepsakes is encouraging everyone to donate time, creativity or extra crafting supplies towards improving the lives of others, we’ve decided to partner with one of our very favorite charities: Operation Write Home.

This amazing charity’s mission is to support our nation’s armed forces by sending blank greeting cards to write home on, as well as cards of gratitude to encourage them. As of November 29, 279,487 cards have been sent to deployed heroes! Let’s add to this number by donating a few cards of our own. I know you’ve got extra cards lying around so please put them to good use by sending them to a good home.

Drop me a line letting me know if you donated any cards. Everyone who donates will be entered into a drawing to win an assortment of paper crafting supplies. All comments must be received by midnight (MDT) on Wednesday, Dec. 9.

Yours in festive giving,
Brandy

P.S. We just added a “Creativity Heals” tab to our menu bar. Any time you want to learn more about giving back or to see what charities we’re supporting, please click HERE.

Well my Husband is in the military and was gone last holiday season, fortunatly he is home this year for the holidays. Living on a military base donations are important and between my kids and their school and my husband and I we donate to a variety of different local veteran and support our troops organizations! Not sure if that counts.

Well, I didn’t donate cards to that charity, but all I’ve been making for the last 6 months or so has been cards to give to my grandma to send to people who visit her in her nursing home, or people at her old senior apt. complex to keep in touch. I feel like that is my mission right now. She LOVES picking out which card to send to whom, and I love to give them to her since it makes her happy to send cute cards to people.

I have sent many cards to OWH and even organized a Christmas letter writing at a local elementary school to send some letters to the heros. I love the idea giving back to these people who fight so hard to keep us safe. I’m getting ready to start my Valentine’s for the Jan. 5 deadline.

I’ve donated a couple of boxes of cards to OWH. One of the shippers lives in the same town as my parents, so when I visit I stop by the shipper’s house for a drop off. Check out their website and visit the “Hero Blog” to read comments from military personnel who have received card shipments! It’s really very touching to see how something as simple as a sending and receiving a handmade card can really brighten the lives of people so far away from their loved ones.

Last week, while I was out mailing my Christmas cards, I picked up an extra flat rate box from the post office. I went through my box of cards (extras that I have made that are ready to mail out) and thinned it out. Any that had been in there over a year got moved to the flat rate box and shipped off to Operation Write Home! Now they have my extra cards and I have cleared out some storage space to make more :-). What a great cause!!!

My daughter is actually collecting cards for the soldiers as a service project in our area. We had a great time “cropping” together to makes some of the cards. So far she’s collected 57 cards! 😀 I’m so proud of her! We’re getting ready to mail them off this week.

I represent a wood veneer company that makes unltra thin wood veneer for the craft and hobby world. We just teamed up with Creative Imaginations. I was wondering if there is someone I could talk to about donating product to the operation write home cause, and creativity heals?

I had a small OWH gathering at my house a couple weeks ago. Sandy Allnock was there and we made/assembled 100 Valentine cards for the troops. I also send most {the ones with no glitter} of my challenge cards to OWH. It is a great cause.

I have sent handmade cards twice to Operation Hero and also have given ready-made cards (before I made cards) to a local charity through the hospital. It feels so good to do this. I’ll continue doing it as long as we have a need~which will be always!!

When my ex-husband was in Iraq, we sent cards to him and his squadron. It was a great cause and all of the guys looked forward to receiving mail.
I think I have some that I can send in to OWH. It is such a great organization.

This is a favorite project of mine. In additon to sending in cards, I also work with local girl scout troops. Most of the girls know at least one serviceman and are eager to participate. They also like to see their names on the donor list on the OWH website

I’ve sent cards to Cards for Heros (the former name of Operation Write Home) and have another batch I need to send. Making the cards is a fun way to use some of my massive paper stash and is for a good cause.

Thanks so much for the inspiration! I’ve just boxed up bunches of my cards from my blog and others made for fun. How nice to know there’s a way to really share with our troops. You’ve made my day! (And my craft area a LOT neater!) Thanks again!

What a wonderful idea! Several years ago some fellow cardmakers sent hundreds of cards to my brother’s unit in Iraq! He shared them with all his soldiers. I am going to go through all my cards right now and make another packet since he is again deployed and mail it out for him to share with his men. Thank you again for inspiring us to reach beyond our community. Jennifer

[…] this week Brandy announced our new joint venture with Creating Keepsakes magazine called “Creativity Heals”. The objective is simple: donate your time, creativity and supplies toward improving the lives of […]

[…] In December we joined forces with Creating Keepsakes magazine and Creativity Heals. This program encourages people to donate time, creativity or extra crafting supplies towards improving the lives of others. We invited all of you to donate cards to Operation Write Home and were blown away by the generosity you showed on our blog and Facebook pages. We’ve been associated with this charity for years and love their support for our nation’s armed forces. We also donated hundreds of cards to this charity following our World Card Making Day Card Contest in October. […]